


Broken Wings

by kanoitrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s10e18 Book of the Damned, M/M, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3755353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanoitrace/pseuds/kanoitrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't tell, even though it had almost slipped out as soon as he'd walked in the bunker and seen. He doesn't know what it means that he can see Cas's wings, or what's left of them, at least. He only knows that he can, and that he wishes he couldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Wings

Getting his grace back had been a single-minded determination ever since he'd lost it. He'd thought he would feel relieved when it actually happened, that perhaps with it's restoration he would feel some sort of peace or right. Instead, all that comes with it is pain, wings mangled beyond recognition – bones broken and feathers ripped free. It is a sort of pain Castiel had forgotten existed, so different from the sharp, sudden pains of humanity or the burning ache of all-wrong grace roiling through his veins. It is a pain not unfamiliar though, a pain that reminds him of what his mission once was and what it became.

All through talking to Sam, all through meeting Charlie, all through seeing Dean and then on, through the beer and the pizza that squarely tastes of nothing but molecules now, through the games and the jokes and the laughing, the pain is a steady ebb and flow of throbbing through all he knows. Where once it brought shame, it now brings comfort. This is what he gave up – gave up, never lost – for the people in this room, and for the mission he believes in. And this? This is what normal is.

But then why does it feel so wrong?

He's grown used to food, to sleep, and to hunger. He knows he will miss dreams as he stares at the ceiling tonight after everyone else goes to bed. All the things he thought he'd feel and all the peace he'd thought he'd get is nowhere in sight. Only pain and longing, not only his, but from right by his side.

* * *

Dean doesn't tell, even though it had almost slipped out as soon as he'd walked in the bunker and seen. He doesn't know what it means that he can see Cas's wings, or what's left of them, at least. He only knows that he can, and that he wishes he couldn't. They're disgusting and sad and not at all what Dean had imagined. Most of all, Dean isn't a fool. He knows that he's at fault for the damage. He'd known it before, but seeing is worse. Seeing is proof, and with proof comes shame that he'd drug someone like Cas through the muck and the grime until nothing except brokenness is left behind.

So he lays awake, in bed, staring at the ceiling, distantly wishing for just a moment with black eyes or turducken slammers filled with black goo, so that maybe he could stop feeling this feeling for a minute or two.

* * *

When Dean flips on the light to the kitchen and sees Cas sitting at the table, skeletal wings pulled in close with scarce feathers fluttering down to litter the floor, there are a million things on the tip of his tongue, all racing for notice and speech. The first one to come out is, “Can't sleep?”

When Cas turns wide, skittish eyes on him, beautiful and reserved and glowing with a light behind them that Dean's never before been able to see, his tongue turns woolen in his mouth.

“I don't need for sleep anymore,” Castiel reminds him.

“Course ya don't,” Dean gruffs, heading for the cupboard and a glass and some water to parch his dry throat.

“What about you?”

Dean shrugs, can't look into the face of the angel he broke. “Just needed some water, Cas.”

“I believe I might miss the sensation of thirst,” Castiel says carefully, rolling the words out slowly, thoughtfully, as though this very matter is what he's stayed up all night thinking about. For all Dean knows, it very well may be.

He deflects – he laughs, a cracking sound with too little mirth and too much well-practiced acting. “You miss being uncomfortable.”

“I miss being human.” And it's said so quietly, so self-consciously, so unsure, that for a moment it sounds nothing like Cas at all, but it socks Dean in the chest all the same.

So he swallows his fear and his shame and disgust, and he sits down next to Cas, placing the water in front of him. Castiel looks at him, searching and confused.

“Think you need it more than me, buddy,” Dean explains, and Cas's brow creases into the well worn furrow that would have permanently wrinkled a more mortal man.

“I don't understand,” he says, and that's the Cas Dean knows.

He can't help the smile that pulls at his lips, small but real. “Just drink your water, Cas.” And when he does, Dean feels the smallest swell of pride, hardly enough to quell all the negativity swirling around his insides, but noticeable and there, all the same. If he can't cure broken wings, he'll do the small things to cure the man.

* * *

It's a painfully human thing to do, to sit up at four in the morning, talking about nothing and drinking water, but it brings the comfort Castiel seeks. Even if he's forever between what he was born and what he became, it doesn't seem so wrong with a glass of water before him and Dean by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> What am I even doing anymore? 
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://kanoitrace.tumblr.com)!


End file.
